In recent years, a moving object recognition device is developed, in which a speed and a change of a moving state of a moving object such as a traveling vehicle in front of an own vehicle or a pedestrian are recognized, and a hazard situations such as sudden braking of a preceding vehicle, another vehicle cutting into between the own vehicle and the preceding vehicle, and a pedestrian suddenly rushing out are early detected, and then a warning is provided to a driver to prevent danger.
For example, in the case of recognizing a moving object located in front, there is a method for obtaining a change of a distance from the object in front by using a size change of the object between image frames of two-dimensional images and a focal length of a camera. However, there may be a problem in which accuracy in measuring the distance from the object by this method, for instance, the accuracy in detecting a change of movement of the moving object is low.
Therefore, in Patent Literature 1 (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-266539), an inter-vehicle distance measurement apparatus is proposed, in which a disparity image (also referred to as range image) is obtained by calculating a disparity from a stereo image obtained by a stereo camera device. The disparity image is the image obtained by converting the disparity to luminance.
The inter-vehicle distance measurement apparatus disclosed in this Patent Literature 1 detects a preceding vehicle from the disparity image, and measures an inter-vehicle distance and a change of the distance based on a moving vector of an edge of a detected vehicle.
However, the inter-vehicle distance measurement apparatus disclosed in Patent Literature 1 has a problem in which recognition accuracy for the moving object is low because the moving object is directly recognized from the disparity image obtained by the stereo camera device.
The present invention is made in consideration of the above-described problems, and is directed to providing an image processing device, a device control system, and an image processing program, capable of improving recognition accuracy for an object.